QUOTE : In the mid-1980s, the medical world wrestled with how to use the new opiates that pharmaceutical companies were developing to treat pain. David Procter was an early and aggressive adopter. He prescribed opiates for neck, leg, and lower back pain, arthritis, and lower lumbar spine pain. He combined them with benzodiazepines—anxiety relievers, of which Valium and Xanax, Procter’s favorite, are the best known. In Portsmouth, people had anxiety and they had pain. Appalachia had a long history of using benzodiazepines—dating to the release of Valium in the early 1960s. Little old ladies used it. In this part of the country, anything that relieved pain was welcome. But opiates and benzos together also led quickly to addiction.